This week, we lift our spirits (oooOOOooo) with a round-up of monsters. We explore their origins and effects on us, with examples ranging from memories of very real things in the past to a hypothesis that doesn't quite have legs (unlike griffins).

Links

• Why we'll always be obsessed with – and afraid of – monsters (The Conversation)
• Why the scariest monsters look almost human (Wellcome Collection)
• Why We Still Need Monsters (Nautilus)
• Why Are So Many Monsters Hybrids? (Nautilus)
• A History of Monsters (Aeon)
• Why do we want to feel sorry for monsters that scare us? (Gizmodo)
• Why Frankenstein is the story that defines our fears (BBC)
• Neanderthals, Scandinavian trolls, and troglodytes (Norwegian American)
• Ōnamazu (Yokai.com)
• Namazu-e: Earthquake catfish prints (Pink Tentacle)
• Namazu (World History Encyclopedia)
• Giant catfish and a legacy of disaster in one of the world's most seismically active regions (Phys.org)
• Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan (Geological Society, London, Special Publications via ResearchGate)
• Why Protoceratops almost certainly wasn't the inspiration for the griffin legend (Mark Witton)
• Griffin Bones (American Museum of Natural History)
• Andrewsarchus, "Superb Skull of a Gigantic Beast" (American Museum of Natural History)
• Jumbies of the West Indies (The Brown Geeks)
• Rare Book Library Summons Tales of World’s Oldest Monsters (Smithsonian)
• The evolution of monsters in children’s literature (Nature)
• A Visual History of Society’s Monsters (Hyperallergic)
• The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII (Smithsonian)
• Doin’ The Mash (Tedium)
• The strange tale of ‘Monster Ma